The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-07-02
GAVE HERSELF.
Youths Companion.

Youths Companion.
 About forty years ago two sisters married at the same time. The elder, whom we shall call Anna, became the wife of man of wealth, and, when she married, she adopted calm reso- lution to use the opportunities that wealth gave to do good in the world.
 She died a year or two ago. She had been prominent member of the church and of society. She was lib- eral with her gifts to all charities; "to give," she was accustomed to say, ''sweetened the moral nature." Nor was she ostentatious in her giving, for she remembered the injunction-"Be not as the hypocrites are." Only she never gave to the extent of making a serious sacrifice.
 She was constant church. goer She read at certain time each day a chapter of the bible, and never failed to conduct family worship. On Sum- day afternoon she took apart each of her children in turn, read and prayed with them. The prayer was very much the same each Sunday, and it never brought tear to her eyes or to theirs "To be perfect in every good word and work" was, she frequently stated, her object in life.
 She was woman of great beauty and sound health, and was extremely careful to preserve both of these good gifts. She walked, worked, ate and slept by rule. She would not allow her children to wear bright colors, lest they might affect her eyes. For the same reason she never permitted herself to weep. Indeed, she avoided the sight of pain or suffering, as grief, she said, disturbed the di- gestive organs. She fulfilled all of her duties in the letter, but not one of them in the spirit.
 When she died, it was found that she had made every arrangement for handsome coffin and monument The only comment made upon her was, "She was remarkably we'll preserved woman," and she was then dismissed and forgotten, even by her children.
 Her sister Jane was of different temperament. She was plain, awk- ward woman, who had so little cause to be pleased with her person that very early in life she forgot it alto gether. She married poor farmer, was the mother of large family of boys, and adopted, besides, two or phans, children of friends still poorer than her husband.
 She worked carly and late, sewing, cleaning, nursing. Now it was her husband for whom she toiled, now the children, now a neighbor, now some poor creature whom nobody else cared to help.
 She had her flashes of temper, she made mistakes; she was full of faults; but she brought them with bitter tears to her Master, and struggled on.
 While her sister was youthful and placid and smiling, she was wrinkled and old, her hands hard with labor. Something of herself-of her thought, her high hopes, her warm love, her strength-she gave to all who came near her.
 It was no wonder that she showed how heavy the drain had been upon her; but husband and children and friends loved her tenderly in spite of her faults. The hard, rough hands that had worked so faithfully in their service were the fairest on earth to them. More than all, she led her children, one after another, to the Savior, who was so real and near to her.
 When, at last, she lay down, silent and still, waiting until God should summon her to work elsewhere, there was not man or woman who had known her who did not feel that a friend and helper had gone out of the world.
 If we would serve God or our brother we must put something of ourselves into the sacrifice. It is the hearts blood that must be laid on the altar, not merely orderly habits or pleasant words. If we give all our goods to feed the poor and our bodies to be burned and have not that self sacrificing love, it protiteth us noth- ing.